State Fund Proposed to Assist Settlers

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 657, 8 May 1929, Page 10

State Fund Proposed to Assist Settlers

MINISTER’S INTENTIONS SPEEDING UP SETTLEMENT (Special to THE SUN) TE KUITI, Today. Parliament will be asked during the coming session to create a development fund to assist men on to the land and tide them over their initial difficulties. T EGISLATION embracing the proposal will be introduced by the Minister of Lands, the Hon. G. W. Forbes, who spoke at a banquet here last evening. Mr. Forbes, in discussing generally the problems of the men on the land, said the Prime Minister agreed with the idea of the fund. In referring to abandoned Crown lands the Minister said he recognised it required more inducement than the mere offering of such farms at a low rate to resettle those which had slipped back and were not very attractive The question of giving some financial assistance to get men back on farms which had reverted to fern and scrub thus arose, but the only advancing department at present was the State Advances Department, which had to look closely into the matter of the security offering. Therefore that department offered no way out of the difficulty. “I believe our predecessors in office did their best according to their lights and were quite sincere in what they were doing,” said Mr. Forbes, responding to the toast of Parliament. “However, the country expressed a desire for a change and I think the factor most influencing that decision was the desire for increased land settlement. Having the responsibility of being Minister of Lands I am naturally pleased to see the scope for increased settlement in this part of New Zealand. I am convinced there will be an opportunity here to put into operation a policy of increased settlement.” The expansion in land settlement in recent years had not been sufficient to keep pace with the increase in population,” the Minister went on. If the farming industry were stimulated all other sections would also benefit. As an original settler on the Cheviot Estate he knew the value and benefit of closer settlement, not only to a district but also to the country as a whole.